


Dear Fellow Traveler

by Araine



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Post-KH3 Speculative, Riku & Aqua friendship adjacent, Riku giving the real advice, Terraqua if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 18:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araine/pseuds/Araine
Summary: Riku talks some sense into Terra.[Submission for the Ties That Bind fanzine, theme: friendship.]





	Dear Fellow Traveler

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so glad I get to finally share this with you all! I wrote this pretty shortly after playing 0.2 and never did anything with it, until the Ties That Bind fanzine came along and I thought this little piece would be perfect for the theme of friendship! I polished it up and submitted and have been sitting on it since then! 
> 
> If you have a spare moment you should absolutely check out the Ties That Bind zine. There is some gorgeous art and some truly fantastic fics in there, and I'm proud to have my work counted among them!

“You’re being a jerk, you know?”

Terra looked up in surprise at the white-haired young man who had joined him up on the ledge. Riku, he remembered, the boy’s name was Riku. The same boy Terra had given the Keyblade to, now grown into a lanky teen. Riku sat down without waiting for invitation, draping himself over the bricks with practiced casualness.

“Hell of a way to start a conversation,” Terra said.

“I don’t believe in dancing around the point,” Riku said. “Especially when I see someone making a stupid mistake and pushing his friends away.”

Terra drew one knee up to his chest and wrapped his arms around it. “It’s not that easy, you know.”

“Because you fell to Xehanort?”

There was a soft kind of understanding in Riku’s voice, but still Terra couldn’t look at him. “I fell so easily,” he murmured. “All I wanted to do was protect my friends and I gave in. And I was—” Shame kept the next words stuck in Terra’s mouth.

“Jealous,” Riku said, apparently serious about not dancing around the point. Terra flinched. “And afraid of your friends leaving you behind. Aqua told me a little of what happened, but I could already guess most of it.”

Terra said nothing, just looked out across the courtyard at the practice           going on down below. Aqua was dancing around Sora easily, flashes of magic          brightening up the courtyard as they traded blows. On the sidelines, Ven was energetically cheering on Aqua, while Kairi loyally yelled her challenges in   support of Sora.

“Amazingly enough, I know exactly how you feel,” Riku said, that sarcastic edge back. “I was possessed, too, by Xehanort’s Heartless. I had to climb my way back up out of the darkness.”

Terra scoffed. He’d been given a short rundown of what had happened while he was—well—away. “And how long were you possessed?” he asked, bitter. “Two weeks?”

“Long enough,” Riku said.

“Try twelve years.”

Riku sighed and very obviously rolled his eyes. “Okay fine. I don’t know how you feel,” he said, his impatience obvious. “I’m not going to sit here and debate you over who had it worse, because you’ll win. But I do know one thing: you’re pushing away the people who love you because you’d rather brood like a jerk than face your fear that you might lose them again.”

“Hey—!”

Riku raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Take it from a fellow jerk: pushing people away never works. You don’t want them to get hurt, but it just hurts them—and you.”

Terra sighed, heavy, his chin falling back to his knee. “Why do you care?”

Riku inclined his head towards Aqua, finishing up the sparring set and wiping sweat from her brow, reaching one hand out for Sora to shake. “She saved my life once,” he said. “She sacrificed herself so that I could live and have a chance to return to the light. I’ll always owe her for that.”

Memory surfaced in Terra. Falling into the long dark and Aqua diving after him. She gave up her chance to come back to the light to save someone she barely knew. Terra looked at her smiling down in the courtyard, admiring her unshakeable light. She was so beautiful and he wanted more than anything to hold her close.

“That sounds like Aqua,” he said.

Riku stayed silent, lounging on the wall as if expecting something—and Terra knew exactly what he was waiting for. The problem was, he couldn’t. Terra couldn’t face the thought that he might betray his friends again.

Except Riku wasn’t going away, and Terra was starting to feel that                                            uncomfortable itch inside that told him maybe he really was wrong. Maybe he really had been hurting his friends. He’d seen the looks when he brushed them off. The way they sometimes seemed to want to say more, but stopped themselves. He’d been afraid, because he was ashamed of what his mistakes had cost them. Only... his mistakes were still costing them.

“Fine,” Terra said at last. “I’ll-- try to let my friends in more.”

Riku smirked, clearly satisfied. “That’s all I ask,” he said. He stood up, stretched languidly, then turned back as if in afterthought. “And if you ever need help controlling the darkness—”

Terra waved him away. “Just who gave the Keyblade to whom, pipsqueak?”

“Hm,” Riku said, amused. He waved a hand over his shoulder and walked off. Terra stayed on the wall, staring down at his friends in the courtyard where Aqua and Sora were trading places with Ventus and Kairi in the ring.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Aqua looked up over her shoulder and met Terra’s eyes. He smiled, raised a hand to her, and waved. The sheer happiness that lit up Aqua’s face made Terra realize he hadn’t seen her truly smile since he had come back.

Drawn by Aqua’s gaze, Ventus turned, waved, and called. “Hey, Terra! Come join us!”

Terra sighed, stretched, and stood up. Maybe it really was time to talk to his friends.


End file.
